Tuesday, 23 March 2010

Absa Cape Epic Stage 2

At 90km, day 2 was one of the shorter routes but as it was almost exclusively singletrack it was still a long, long day in the saddle.

Yesterday was the first time i was to experience racing in temperatures that reached 45deg.

Dave and i set off steady and rode like this for the first 4hrs til about midday whereupon someone turned the oven on and almost stopped me in my tracks! It's like trying to ride with an elephant on your back.

We raced through some of the most incredible singletrack and i grovelled, not as badly as stage 1 but still worse than in living memory.

Mule Bar is the main nutrition sponsor at the water stops. At the 3rd stop, much to his and everybody else's entertainment, the guy operating the water hose pointed it down on my head and drenched me -the best thing i've ever felt...

The Specialized Epic is holding up fine, despite a few knocks and scrapes and despite my grovelling, suffering and creeping we rolled in after a similar time out in the sun. 50 teams were less lucky...